Welcome to this instalment of "Victoria in Japan". This post turned out to be longer than expected, so bear with me. This week (or was it two weeks?), have been filled with fun events, including my Birthday. I barely had time to take a break, which is good since I love to be busy.
On Monday at Kyudo instead of having regular practice, we worked on refurbishing the targets.
This is usually how we spend practice. I can´t describe how cold it gets in the doujo. Kyudo isn´t the kind of activity that makes you work up a sweat, but you just gotta stick it out. The rest of the practices that week included a lot of traditional Kyudo practice, which includes a lot of bowing, sitting, standing, and making sure every thing aligns just right. I´m also slowly building up strength so I can shoot with bows that have more resistance.
Kyudo involves a lot of sitting in kiza. Number 2 is an example of the kiza position. It really hurts when you sit like that for an extended period of time, in addition to that your toes are basically frozen. I wrote about it in this daily diary paper we have to turn in everyday at school, but I accidentally wrote "shiza" instead of "kiza".
My homeroom teacher, Mr. Arakawa, who also supervises kyudo practice poked fun at me about it the next day at practice. He also told me I would be able to participate in the kyudo examination in April to determine which level I am. Of course I´ll do it, but it´ll be interesting to see how I do haha. Because of that I have decided to go to every practice no matter what from now on!
On Wednesday there was a national holiday, which meant no school. So half of the exchange student crew decided to meet up in Nagoya. This time I ended up taking the bus, which was much faster than the slow train that I usually take, but about the same price. I took the 6.30 train and arrived at 9.
After meeting up with the other exchangies, we went straight to this cosplay purikura place. I got to dress up as Snow White. The boys weren´t too keen on dressing up though haha.
Alice, Snow White, and Little Red Riding Hood.
Maybe next time i can get them to dress up haha
The results
We ended up going to Osu, and bought crepes.
After doing puri, we rode the subway to an other part of town to find somewhere to eat. We ended up eating these really expensive organic burgers. They were good, but not as good as Center4 (I don´t think I´m biased). After that we did a lot of walking around different department stores. I didn´t buy much ´cause I was saving my money for the Tokyo trip.
Happiness/Gluttony
After looking around the shops some more we headed back to Nagoya Station. Since rest of the crew lives really close to Nagoya, they could just catch the next train home. Life isn´t so easy for us who live up in the mountains. I had an hour by myself to kill, so I bummed around some department store. I ended up buying a really cute off-shoulder sweater. Then it was time to catch the bus back home. I pretty much slept the whole way back.
On that Friday in math class, it was snowing so hard outside the windows all you could see was white. Mr. Arakawa (homeroom teacher, kyudo supervisor) started asking me if it snowed like that in Norway. This is a question I get asked so often, it´s ridiculous. I never know what to answer, because the weather in Norway varies a lot depending on where you are. So I answered, not where I live in Norway, but there was recently a big storm that forced everybody to stay inside. The word for storm in Japanese is "arashi", and one of the most popular boy bands in Japan is also called "Arashi". So suddenly he starts asking me who my favorite member of said boy band is. We were talking while the other students were studying, so everyone heard everything.
I like the group casually, so I knew the members faces but had no clue about the names, so the rest of the class I try to describe him to my teacher. He finally figured it out that my favorite member´s name is "Ninomiya". When he asked why I said because he´s the handsomest. He asked me about my opinion on the other members looks, and it made the whole class burst out into laughter. It was a surreal math class.
On Saturday I woke up early because we were going to drive to Tokyo. The drive took more or less four hours (or it should have, the kids had to take many pee breaks). When we arrived we checked in to the hotel, before heading to Shinjuku to do some shopping.
Matcha Frappucino is hands down the best Starbuck drink I´ve ever had ever
View of Fuji-san on our way to Tokyo.
We met up with my host sister who lives in Tokyo and her family, plus their cousin that studies in Tokyo, in Akihabara. Akihabara is a notoriously nerdy part of the city, but they brought me there anyway.
I´ve never seen this anime, but everyone else seemed pretty excited about it.
Akihabara is also the home of my favorite Japanese girl group, AKB48. We checked out the shop so I could buy some souvenirs.
The real theater is somewhere else, but I can check that out some other time
We went to eat at a family friend´s restaurant near by. I tried to take a picture of my host mom and the little ones, but they wouldn´t keep still haha.
After dinner my host nephew and I headed to the movie theater to see "Aoha Ride". On our way there I took this picture of this awesome sign, before my phone died. The movie was ok.
On Sunday, we woke up early to head to Disneyland. The trip was my Birthday present from my host family. It was my eighteenth Birthday, which is a pretty big deal back home in Norway, because then you´re legally an adult. But Japan the legal age is twenty, and the Rotary Youth Exchange rules prohibits drinking and other "adult" things, I think I had quite a different eighteenth Birthday than my friends back home. But I think spending the day at Disneyland was great, because not only is Disneyland always fun, it was really nostalgic being surrounded by characters that I´ve basically have grown up with. My family watched a lot of Disney. I felt as exited to be there as I was the first time I went to Disneyland (at age three or four, I think). The whole day a was a walk down memory lane.
To get to the park we had to ride the Disney train. The handles were too cute for me not to take a picture of them.
I don´t know how it is in the rest of the world, but Japan is obsessed with "Frozen", I was thinking of making a whole separate post about this actually. This was the display after we walked through the gates. There were so many people, the most I´ve ever seen at any amusement park.
After bumming around trying to find out what to do with ourselves (all the rides had over two hours waiting time), we found some spots to sit down to watch the "Frozen Fantasy" parade. Nao bought popcorn, and this was the face he made when he didn´t want to share with his brother.
Someone brought some hamburgers shaped as Mickey Mouse. I don´t really think you can see it that well, but I included this picture because of the face he´s making here. "Why is this girl taking a picture of me when I´m eating??"
The mini-parade started!
Everyone freaked out!
Everyone sang along to "Let It Go"!
I don´t remember these outfits from the movie, but the dancers were cute.
This is from a different parade a little bit later in the afternoon. The lines for the rides were all ridiculously long, so we just decided to fastpass everything. There were a lot of other people who had the same idea, so most of our fastpasses were in the evening. Going to Disneyland on a weekend was maybe not the most strategic move haha.
Aladdin was my childhood crush so the fact that he waved to me absolutely made my day.
I was discussing with my host mom on wether she thinks I could get a job as a Disney Princess. It seems like a pretty sweet deal.
Cinderella´s castle
We took a group photo just before naptime, everyone looks tired. The kids went to the hotel to get some rest, I think their parents were pretty exhausted too. I had some time to explore the park, take pictures, and blow my money on pins for my blazer.
I found this really cute vending machine, so naturally I wanted to take a picture of it. I waited for the couple in front of me to finish buying their drinks, but then more people would swoop in front of me. I waited a really long time for the people to disappear, until a couple noticed I was trying to take a picture. I think it was worth it.
On my way to check out the stores by the castle I walked past Cinderella and Prince Charming. It´s a little blurry, and I kinda felt like a paparazzi.
Soon we returned to the hotel too. It was really windy at the park, and we were pretty tired. Besides all our fastpasses were schedules for after dinner time. We had something quick and easy for dinner, and I got to eat some strawberry shortcake. We headed back towards Disneyland.
My host mom and I had fastpasses for Space Mountain, which is one of my favorite rides. After that everyone rode the Monsters Inc. ride. We spent a lot of time at the Monsters In.c souvenir shop afterwards.
I couldn´t get them to pose for me
There was this really cool light projection show at night. The castle was used as a canvas for showing clips from lots of different Disney movies. It was really nostalgic, I almost started tearing up.
Pretty darn colorful. Not long after we went home. The whole train ride back I reflected over my eighteen years of being alive. I think I´ve had a pretty cool life so far. I also took some time to respond to all the lovely Birthday wishes I received. It was a good day.
My third little nephew, Kokichiro is eating my soy sauce butter popcorn. It came in a really cute Mickey shaped bucket.
The Tokyo folks went home, while us Takayama peeps headed towards Gotemba Outlet Mall. On the way there we got a pretty good view of Tokyo Tower.
On our way out of the parking lot at Gotemba we got a pretty awesome view of Mount Fuji too.
I got to roam around a while by myself looking through all the different shops. I had a limited amount of cash, and no idea how much I had on my account. All the things I wanted were well over what I had in cash, and I wasn´t willing to risk trying to buy something in the case that I didn´t have enough money on my plastic card. I mostly just window shopped, but I did end up buying this crepe. I´m more or less addicted. I decided to be smarter with my money, since my luggage is getting pretty heavy as it is, and I´d rather buy something really nice at the end of my exchange.
The view of Fuji San kept getting better and better. I swear I could make this into a postcard.
Me and my host sister got some time to look around together, because mom decided to watch over the kids. Among many other stores we went to Abercrombie & Fitch. I could smell it a mile away. It was just like any other A&F store, which in a way, was kinda disturbing. The employees would say "Hey, how´s it goin´?" in English everytime someone walked in the shop. Kinda like how the Japanese always say "irrashaimase", but this made me uncomfortable. Am I supposed to answer? Are they going to strike up a conversation with me? I just ignored. I guess that changing up the usual customer greeting was a way for the store to maintain that americana feel, even when you´re in Japan.
We ended up having pasta for lunch, and then heading home. I´d say it took about four hours, but with the kids taking so many potty breaks, who knows.
We stopped at Starbucks on the way back. For Spring they decorated the cups with sakura. I guess it´s a spring thing, but as far as I can tell spring is a long way away from where I live. Cheers for wishful thinking though. The contents of this cup was some kind of caramel sakura latte thing. It tasted like pure sugar.
BONUS: The stuff I bought
A Dictionary of Basic and Intermediate Japanese Grammar. I heard a lot of great things about these books, so I was really happy when I finally found them. They´re really thick, and there are so many grammar points covered. These are some really dense books. Definitely helpful for when I come a cross a grammar point I´m unfamiliar with, or if I want a better understanding of how a certain grammar point works.
I saw this book and thought it looked interesting. In Japanese there are a lot of onomatopoeia words, which are words that describe the sound of something. For example "buzz" or "splash". Japanese onomatopeia are confusing, so I decided to give this book a try.
Since we went to the AKB shop and cafe, there was no way I was leaving without something for my blazer. I bought pins of Rina Kawaei (the biggest pin), who just so happens to be the AKB member who I gave my message to on tv, and Haruna Kojima.
More pins for my blazer. These were actually pretty expensive, but I collect Disney pins as well, so no worries.
My Birthday pass gifts. I attached the Mickey plushie to my blazer as well. The rotary blazer is filling quite well, I should give you a detailed tour of it sometime haha.
I went to school on Tuesday. Since it had just been Valentines day, I received a lot of chocolates from my classmates as well as my kyudo friend. They were of the homemade kind, while I gave everyone chocolates I bought at Disneyland.
In music class we´ve been playing hand bells for a while, so we had a mini concert. Being synchronised is pretty difficult.
I think I prefer the guitar though haha.
Since it had also just been my Birthday, I received a lot of Birthday presents from my friends. Not everyone knew I had my Birthday, so I received presents everyday for one whole week. Everyone was so kind, and all the sweets were so delicious. I started breaking out from all the sugar though. I didn´t take a picture of everything, because a lot of it was eaten on sight.
Homemade Valentine/Birthday sweets
A really nice message written on a plastic bag. "Happy Birthday! I love you. Let´s have fun for a little more. Please eat the candy"
More sweets
Another present
"Happy Birthday! I´m really happy I got to meet you. Thank you for becoming friends with me. There´s only a little time left, and I´ll miss you. So let´s make lots of memories and have lots of fun." This made me tear up a little. We´re changing classes soon, and on top of that I don´t have all that much time left here.
Inside the envelope was this cute Totoro folder. I have a Totoro pencase, so my friend must have noticed. I thought it was incredibly sweet <3
Other than my friends trying to fatten me up with all the candy, nothing too special happened at school. Kyudo club decided to cancel the practices up until the exams so everyone could study. I really wanted to go to practice, but oh well.
On Saturday it was my host sister, Akiko´s Birthday. She turned 35. I can´t believe it actually, cause she´s both young in looks and spirit. Since I didn´t get a proper Birthday cake last week, we shared. It said my name on it and everything. We were planning on going out after, but one of the kids had a hissy fit and we had to stay at home. Some other time I guess.
On Sunday I did literally nothing, except for filming this YouTube video:
It´s been such a long time since I made a video, so I just wanted to make an update video. As usual I tried filming it with my big camera, to only end up deleting everything by accident (again). But as I said, I have a lot of ideas for videos I want to make, so I´m going to start working on those as soon as possible. Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment